A View on the Zoo
by Laurensmiles
Summary: Quick little one-shot in the future. Auggie/Annie/their family.


Auggie likes the sound of their feet racing up to him as soon as he walks in the door. The bigger set treads a bit ahead, a little more clumsily and heavier. The audibly tinier pair follows right behind. The second pair never makes as much noise, which he takes as a sign of inevitable gracefulness. He kneels down to meet the pair with hugs.

"Daddy!" the voice that belongs to the second pair of feet screeches. Auggie thinks that she overcompensates for being second by shouting out first. "You're _finally_ home!" she oozes with the dramatic tone that only a four (…and-a-half, as his magnificent daughter would insist) year old can capture.

He laughs lightly. With a fake serious tone, he replies dryly, "I know it's been a very long three days, seven hours, and counting." He gestures to his watch to indicate he has been counting each minute during the business trip, during which he stayed in New York for a weekend of meetings.

The other voice that belongs to his seven year old son finally chirps in, "Guess what? Mom let me play video games for two hours straight yesterday!"

"And she took us to the zoo too," his daughter lightly adds. Suddenly, she squeezes her hand around his neck. "Daddy, we went to a petting zoo. You could touch the animals!"

He appreciates how they both find drastically different highlights to the two days. Just as he is about to ask where their lovely mother is, he hears another set of footsteps. "Are you guys giving Daddy a report on our last two adventurous days?" she asks gently.

Auggie stands up again. He smiles at her as she reaches him. She plants a nice kiss right on his lips before he can answer. As her mouth moves past his ear, she murmurs, "I missed you." Even after three days, he loves being home with his family again. He loves how he and Annie's definition of adventurous has transformed over the years from field missions to family day trips. Eight years ago, when Annie stopped working on the field, they began that transformation. Still, it continually amazes him. For Auggie Anderson, this is perfection. He just took awhile to discover it.

Dutifully, he summarizes the reports with a smile, "Luke told me all about the video game time. It's really putting me to shame with my pesky one hour a day limit. Going outside is apparently the lame thing to do these days. And of course, Alice loved the zoo."

"Mostly the part where you touch the animals, right Mommy?" Alice delightfully adds.

"Yes, we loved the petting zoo!" Annie confirms. The excitement from the kids always affects her mood too. Suddenly, her tone brightens above her own regular happiness. It reaches another notch that Auggie never heard before they had the kids. Honestly, he finds himself doing the same thing. To think, he once thought he would never be a father. With Annie, the thoughts seem ridiculous in retrospect. He parents differently, both because of his chosen career path and his lack of eyesight. Still, having children gives everything new meaning. Lucas and Alice, alongside Annie, are all that matter.

Following what Auggie guesses is an eye roll (from Annie's scoffing afterwards), Luke mumbles, "It wasn't_that_ great."

Annie sighs lightly, not taking their son seriously. "Oh stop it. You loved it too." He can hear her hand swoosh through the air a little to emphasize the silliness.

Luke already is beginning to go through that prepubescent rebellion. At merely seven years old, Auggie finds it all a little early; however, his wife claims that children experience their rebellious moments earlier and earlier these days. Annie read an article about the media's influence on children today in one of those parenting today magazines she loves so much. They both have settled on treating the behavior as unacceptable in a rather silly "shrug it off" way.

"It was okay," Luke agrees begrudgingly. He still is only seven and easy enough to convince. Early signs of pre-teenage angst be damned.

"We need to go back sometime soon, Aug. It's really fun these days- infinitely better than my own early childhood memories of the zoo. There's so much to see there," Annie raves once again.

Auggie's finger rests against her cheek now. They touch a lot, as some substitute for not getting to see her happiness visually. He supposes it connects them even more tightly. As for the kids, they always have seen their parents this way. Auggie feels more comfortable with them than most people in his life. Most of the worries he carried about parenthood have been proven insignificant. For one, neither Luke nor Alice care about the super organization of their home. From the start, they learned to clean up their toys, keep the food on the pre-determined shelves, and maintain all the other tedious aspects. In fact, teachers often compliment their cleaning up skills exceeding those of their peers. Both of the kids, as well as Annie, help him with the little things that used to be so tedious when he lived alone. Things like sorting money out have become infinitely easier with a family. And while taking care of infants alone posed concern at first, he adapted to the situations like all the others. Really, everything worked out much better than expected.

And still, moments like these arise where Annie forgets. His blindness has become second nature to them all. She wants to include him in the zoo experience for many reasons, without thinking how little Auggie really could enjoy a zoo. He finds himself able to love lots of places that mainly play to vision, through his family's enjoyment alone. Still, a zoo rather requires sight. You do not generally want to smell a zoo- well, at least, Auggie doesn't. Even the parts that work well with touch require some eyesight. You definitely do not want to jam your fingers into a petting zoo area without knowing which animal you are about to touch. Unless that is, you want to go home with one less finger.

Of course, Annie means nothing exclusionary. In fact, her inclusion means a lot to him. She never fails to include him in family events. Honestly, Auggie probably will go to the zoo too. He will smile and find the one or two things that can make it interesting to him. He will enjoy the sounds of Annie, Luke, and Alice reveling in it all. In turn, his family will think he adores it as much as they do. In a way, he will adore it too, because of them. They just won't understand the exact rationale. He lies better than Annie, even to this day. In such matters, he sometimes finds minor deception best.

Auggie just wishes that he could enjoy stupid things like the zoo comprehensively, without pretending at all. The thought is quite selfish really. Nobody can have it all. He just wishes, for one day, he could see again. Truly, he only wants _one_more day. In one day, he really could capture the beauty of Alice's hazel eyes and the shade of her hair. In one day, he really could measure how much Luke looked just like him. In one day, he could finally complete the vision of his incredibly beautiful wife within his mind. Maybe, he could pull out an old photograph of their wedding too. He misses photographs a lot. Now, he holds memories in another form- but my God, he would like to see the euphoria plastered across both of their faces that fateful day eleven years ago.

Of course, Auggie can wish all he wants and be left with the unnerving darkness. He settles on being imaginative instead. His imagination conjures an image of Luke strikingly similar to himself at eight with a tiny bit of his imagined Annie too. It mixes with all the noises that he associates with his son, from the sound of his voice to patter of his feet to how he always races in the door. Same with Alice. He envisions her like a little mix of him and Annie with her bright eyes and light brown hair mixed with her ballerina steps and her bouncily cheerful tone. They have their own smell, a mix of the sweet scent of the house and each of their shampoos. Then, there is _his_ Annie, still wearing her grapefruit just for him. Always.

Auggie most likely never will see any of them, but he feels like he gets a more comprehensive view than many people do. It's very different but equally close. Whether it is true or not, he likes to believe his view makes up for all that he wishes he could experience. He likes to believe that experiencing the zoo through his wife and children's' eyes will be more rewarding than seeing it himself.

That being said, he hates the smell of zoos. Maybe they can settle on the aquarium instead.


End file.
